Mardi Gras in New Orleans

This was the day we were most worried about during our trip, because we didn't know what to expect. Parking was a nightmare. Parking spots near the parade route were going for $40!! We luckily found a spot and enjoyed the walk over to Canal Street. We walked through the French Quarters and part of Bourbon Street. We wanted to get a peek at it before it got too wild. We ended up veering off it because at 9:30 in the morning the party was already going at one end of Bourbon Street.

We saw a tiny bit of the parade. We got there too late to get good seats, so we didn't stay too long.

We then walked to the Algier Ferry and enjoyed the view of the Mississippi.

We then went to the famous Cafe du Monde and had beignets. (Thanks Grandmother and Grandfather Muhlestein for the suggestion and for the Valentines money that we used to fund this part of our adventure.)

(This is Nicholas having his first taste. Later, he gets covered with powder sugar when he eats a whole beignet by himself.)

We then made the walk back to our car. As we were walking back, we ran into the costume contest/parade. There were some very impressive and elaborate costumes.

Nicholas was worn out by all our fun. He is our little Mardi Gras king.

We then drove across Lake Pontchartrain. This was one of the highlights of the trip for Joseph. He has always wanted to drive across this bridge since he found out about it.

We ate dinner and then drove back to Baton Rouge and did a little bit of sightseeing before we turned in for the night. We can now die saying that we did Mardi Gras in New Orleans. (We still have New Years in Time Square and Groundhog's Day in Punxsutawney, PA on our list.)

Spring Break in Louisiana (March 6th-7th)

We left on Sunday after sacrament meeting and drove all day to Louisiana. We made one stop at the Sam Houston memorial. The rosebud trees were in bloom and it was gorgeous.

We made it to our campsite at Lake Fausse Pointe State Park after dark. We car camped that night and woke up to discover that this state park lived up to all of its positive reviews. It is amazing!! It has a splash park, a playground, cabins, fishing, and tons of place to hike, bike, and canoe. We hiked around and then went canoeing on the lake. We definitely would love to come back to Lake Fausse and spend a whole week. It is my kind of camping.

Our next stop was Lake Martin. We walked along the shore and spotted a lot of turtles and alligators. At one point, we counted around 24 to 30 baby alligators grouped together sunning themselves. We then took a boat tour and saw a lot of other wildlife and got real close to some big gators. It was a cold day, so we didn't see as many as we would have liked. We only got to see three really big gators. We did see tons of birds and a nutria. (A nutria is a swamp rat from South America that was farmed for its fur in Louisiana and then escaped into the wild.)

We then drove into Layfette and got a pizza and watched the Layfette Mardi Gras parade. It was really fun and completely family friendly. It didn't get going until after Nicholas' bedtime, so he spent most of the parade snuggled up with Mom and getting really annoyed when Mom didn't move fast enough and beads hit him in the head. He did enjoy all the trinkets we collected. He especially loved the giant coins. They are his "moneys."

Joseph's View in Class

If you were wondering what medical school is like, here it is.

Seedlings!!

We tried to think of the place in our house that would be the warmest and safest from our curious little Sqeeber. We are actually pretty pleased with our current approach, and Nicholas loves it when we open the door for him and he gets to see the plants.

Nicholas at 16 months

Weight: 28 lbs

Height: 31 inches

Teeth Count: 4 bottom 5 top

Nickname: Squeeber

Favorite Activities:

• He loves brushing his lower teeth. He hates bushing his top teeth. I don't know if they are more sensitive or what.
• Holding Papa's shaver.
• Holding any phone shaped item up to his ear and talking on the phone.
• Nicholas loves "studying" a lot more than Papa does. What activity that lets you hold a highlighter and a pen while flipping through a large book could be bad?
• Playing hide-and-go-seek with the rings.
• Looking at books. Within the last week-and-a-half, Nicholas has finally calmed down enough that he will sit on my lap and flip through some books. He loves his pop up Monster Transportation book and a book called Tails. He asks for me to read a book to him first thing in the morning.
• He loves riding in the little car we got him or on his tricycle. He has to be pushed around on both of these, but he loves them.
• He loves "driving" the car. He will sit in the front seat and push ever button and pull every lever until ever light on the car is on.
• He still LOVES dogs. He also LOVES birds this past month.
• He LOVES socks.

Things I'm Surprised He Doesn't Do:

• Nicholas doesn't really like listening to music or dancing.
• He doesn't climb. He likes it when Papa puts him up in the tree or on something high. (Papa loves to do this.)
• He doesn't ever hit or bite people. When we hang out with other children and they take his toy, he will do one of three things: not care, watch and wait for them to put it down, or get sad and cry. He never gets angry. He has such a sweet soul.
• He is still mostly a dropper and doesn't throw things very well.

New skills:

• Two weeks ago, he started to fold his arms all by himself when we tell him it is time for prayer.
• He is getting really good at feeding himself. He feeds himself oatmeal every morning.
• He loves to help cook. He dumps the oatmeal into the cup, opens and shuts the microwave, and dumps a spoon full of sugar into his oatmeal. He loves to crack eggs and helps scramble them.
• He can go down the kiddie slide all by himself.
• Getting off of the couch and chairs.
• His understanding has increased IMMENSELY this month. It is really great. He understands most of the simple commands I tell him.
• He can pull almost anything off the counter. He isn't tall enough to see what he is pulling down, but he knows that is where we keep the real interesting stuff.
• He loves taking the lids off things.
• He actually will build with his giant legos instead of just singing to them. (He still mostly will just hold them up to his mouth and sing to them.)

Quirks:

• He is becoming more attached to his pacifier. (Getting rid of it will be a struggle.)
• For the past two days, he has loved running between my legs.
• When we take him to feed the ducks, we have to bring a lot of bread because Nicholas ends up eating most of it.
• His favorite part of bath time is filling a cup up with water and dumping it on his belly and laughing. He does this almost twenty times during his bath.
• When he likes what he is eating, he will say, "Mmmmm."
• He loves showing people his belly. When he meets someone new and he is a little nervous, he uses this move as an ice breaker.
• We have been swaddling him again to get him down for naps.

Words He Says Consistently:

• Ca-Las (Nicholas)
• Yeah
• This
• Juice
• Dog

*He will repeat a couple phrases and words that I say, but will only say them once or twice.

What I Think I Have Learned About Parenting:

• This last stage he was in was a pretty hard stage for me. He was into EVERYTHING and wanted to be held ALL THE TIME and only by mama. Also he WHINED CONSTANTLY when I wasn't devoting 110% of my attention to him or we were out of the house. There were also about two or three weeks that his one hour nap turned into a 20 minute nap every other day. I had to step back and figure out how to parent a little smarter. We now have enough toys that I have started rotating them. This keeps him interested in the toys he has and also helps with clean up because there are not as many toys for him to spread through out the house. I'm trying to hang back more, so he learns to play on his own. I am also trying to get him around more kids. We try to do one outing per day.
• I read the Love and Logic book for kids 6 and under. It wasn't much help for this age. It just basically said to be consistent (which is hard) and to remove and distract when they are not doing what you want. I'm anxious to try out the other advice this book gives when Nicholas gets older.
• The most important and helpful thing I have learned is to not say "No, No" when he is just doing something I don't want him to do. I now say, "Oh, Oh" instead. I save "No, No" for when he is doing something dangerous.

Nicholas throwing acorns

Nicholas loved picking up acorns and throwing them. After I picked him up and took him two houses down, he immediately went two houses back to where all of the acorns are.

Let it snow!!

The Superbowl party isn't the only group getting snowed on here in Dallas. The roads have been crazy but we've had lots of fun showing Nicholas something he hasn't seen since our Utah trip. The picture is from the train station this morning.
(This is Joseph testing out the Blogger application on his phone. Maren will soon have a much better post up.)

Snow in Dallas (Feb 4)

We have been mainly staying at home since Monday night, when the ice storm hit. It is finally warming up, but it snowed last night. They say our winter wonderland will be gone by tomorrow:( I love snow, but I hate the fact that Dallas shuts down for it and that they don't have the capabilities to keep the roads clear.

Joseph went to school, but got home early because his last class was cancelled. Around 2, we all bundled up and went and played in the snow. It was Nicholas' first time out in the snow. Before, he wasn't stable enough and he lacked shoes. He loved stepping on the snow and making footprints.

We celebrated Chinese New Year today (one day late) for our big at home date night. We had ham fried rice (minus the ham), quick sweet and sour chicken, and mandrin oranges. We wore red and ate a little with chopsticks. Nicholas measured out the rice and water. He also cracked all the eggs and helped scramble them. He ate the mandrin oranges, the chicken, and he picked the eggs out of the rice.

Here is another cute little picture of Nicholas. You can tell how much he picks up from watching us. He wants to be just like his Dad.